As sun streamed through the clerestory windows for the first time since NewMexiKen arrived home from Virginia, I noticed that I won’t have to do much decorating for Halloween this year.
The cobwebs are already up.
The Wayward Wind
This was first posted here two years ago today, but seemed timely. A new Smokey Bear balloon was constructed after this incident and is in this year’s Fiesta.
One of the reasons NewMexiKen likes looking up at balloons, but doesn’t ever intend to be a passenger. If God intended for us to fly he’d put us in 757s.
The final day of the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta ended with high drama Sunday when a balloon became entangled in a radio tower, forcing the pilot and two young passengers to shimmy most of the way down the nearly 700-foot-tall structure.
Bill Chapel, 69, of Albuquerque, was piloting the Smokey Bear balloon when winds blew into the radio tower near the balloon fiesta park.“All you can do is grit you teeth and hold on to your passengers and prepare them for the impact,” he said.
The hot-air balloon’s canopy — shaped like the face of the famous bear that warns children against forest fires — got wrapped up around the triangular-shaped tower, leaving its gondola resting up against the structure and Chapel and his young passengers, Aaron Whitacre, 10, of Tucson, Ariz., and Troy Wells, 14, of Rio Rancho, stranded.
“I hung onto the tower with all my strength, and I got them calmed down,” Chapel said.
The pilot said he didn’t need to tell the boys what to do: “They climbed down the tower and I followed them.”
The trio made their way slowly down the tower’s interior ladder.
From AP.
The radio station, KKOB, shut down its 50,000 watt transmitter during the emergency. Damage to the tower is estimated at $10,000. The Smokey Bear balloon was destroyed.
Two for Tea
An article from The New York Times on the return of jaguars to New Mexico and Arizona — Gone for Decades, Jaguars Steal Back to the Southwest. The fence along the border will put an end to this nonsense.
And some background about Gershwin’s opera Porgy and Bess, which opened 71 years ago tonight — Happy Birthday, Porgy.
“Summertime” “Bess, You Is My Woman Now” “I Got Plenty o’ Nothin” “It Ain’t Necessarily So” — good stuff.
The Sun Is Out
And the balloons are up.
Albuquerque got an inch-and-a-half of rain yesterday, but it’s clearing out this morning and the weather looks favorable for the next few days of ballooning.
More rain is likely this weekend, but the weather is always good for fiesta-ing.
Called Out
Rox Populi says “I’ve Wanted to Do This a Million Times.” (Video)
What to Watch
A summary of the early season from The New York Times:
Three weeks into the new network television season, three new shows are giving early signs of being winners: “Heroes” on NBC, “Jericho” on CBS and “Ugly Betty” on ABC. And some scheduling moves have worked brilliantly, like ABC’s shift of “Grey’s Anatomy,” now television’s hottest show, to Thursday night.
The Fox network had virtually nothing good happen with any of the shows it introduced; CBS has found scant interest so far for its expensive new sit-com, “The Class,” even though it is the creation of David Crane of “Friends” fame; and the new CW network, the combination of the old WB and UPN, has found viewers seemingly unaware that most of its shows are even on.
NBC is the only network showing overall growth from last season, bolstered by “Heroes” and the addition of N.F.L. football on Sunday nights. ABC has countered with the shrewdest scheduling gambit of the fall, its relocation of “Grey’s Anatomy” to Thursday night, where it has moved past the former titan, “CSI,” making ABC a new power on the most important night of the week.
NewMexiKen’s daughters watch television, it seems, exclusively via TiVo. Nights and times likes those discussed in the article excerpted here seemingly have very little meaning. Jill and Emily both claim, I think, that they watch more TV with TiVo, but in less time overall.
Fall
A couple of nice shots taken recently by official NewMexiKen siblings John and Debby. Click each photo to see a larger version.
Best line of the day, so far
“If you really want to get a taste of it, come out and go with us.”
— Mike Krepfl, owner of AAA Pumping Service, which provides 401 porta-potties to the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta. He’s offering a free ride-along if you want to look into the business. From story in The Albuquerque Tribune.
Money quote: “[Fiesta field manager Sam] Baxter says he received a letter from a lady from the East Coast ‘thanking us immensely for providing a little ledge [in the porta-potty] for her purse,’ not knowing what the urinal was for.”
This evening’s events have been canceled after hard rains again this afternoon. [1.47 inches of rain Monday officially.]
Thinking About Columbus Day
Today is the second Monday in October and the day we celebrate the federal holiday honoring Christopher Columbus. Last year I posted some thoughts on the matter. Here they are again (with a few inconsequential edits):
NewMexiKen is well aware of the feelings among many American Indians and others about Columbus Day. One Lakota woman who worked for me used to ask if—as a protest—she could come in and work on Columbus Day, a federal holiday.
My feeling is that we can’t have enough holidays and so I choose to think of Columbus Day as the Italian-American holiday. Nothing wrong with that. We have an African-American holiday on Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. We have the Irish-American celebration that is St. Patrick’s Day. And Cinco de Mayo is surely the Mexican-American holiday, a much larger celebration here than in most of Mexico.
So, instead of protesting Columbus Day, perhaps American Indians should organize and bring about a holiday of their very own. Given the great diversity among Indian nations (and, lets face it, a proclivity for endless debate), the tribes might never reach agreement, though, so NewMexiKen will suggest a date.
The day before Columbus Day.
Best line of the day, so far
“Liberals feign outrage over Mark Foley’s courtship of underage Congressional pages, but millions of them laughed uproariously when Captain Oveur in Airplane!, played by Peter Graves, asked little Joey if he liked to watch movies about gladiators!”
— Le Blog Bérubé making fun of New York Times columnist David Brooks who actually made a similar statement, only Brooks was serious.
News Developments
North Korea tests nuclear device, but more importantly events at the Albuquerque Balloon Fiesta were rained out again this morning.
Sunday evening’s balloon glow was restricted to a candle glow — burners, no actual balloons (in balloon speak, the envelopes weren’t inflated). The fireworks show went on as scheduled, though. I saw them from my plane on approach.
Sunday morning’s events and Saturday night’s America’s Challenge Gas Balloon Race launch had been canceled as well.
Nuts
In light of our discussion a few weeks ago here at NewMexiKen about peanut allergies, I found this warning on the box for Kiley’s birthday cake interesting.
One of the children attending Kiley’s party has a moderate-to-severe peanut allergy. Her mother made certain the daughter did not get birthday cake, but seemed otherwise unconcerned about the other two dozen of us scarfing it down.
Imagine
John Lennon should have been 66 today.
Rest Stop
[A] good nights sleep now appears to be every bit as important to good health and long life as a nutritious diet and regular exercise.
“Sleep is in the top three,” says Dinges. “And I think its No. 1. Sleep is a biological imperative and not getting enough has health-related costs.”
In April, the Institute of Medicine issued a report confirming links between sleep deprivation and an increased risk of hypertension, diabetes, obesity, depression, heart attack and stroke.
Some scientists are exploring possible connections between inadequate sleep and a decline in immune function.
The above from a report in Monday’s Los Angeles Times, posted here by NewMexiKen at 3:42 AM because I can’t sleep. Some more from the LAT:
Sleep researchers have a name for the way the vast majority of people in this country sleep: volitional chronic sleep deprivation, and it is a lifestyle disorder.
Without enough sleep, the cost in reduced memory, focus, concentration and reaction time is well established. Incidents in the lore of sleep research include the Exxon Valdez oil spill and the Chernobyl nuclear power plant disaster. In each, key decisions were made by people who were sleep deprived.
But it’s only in the last half a dozen years that studies have begun to link chronic partial sleep deprivation to serious physical health consequences.
Money quote: “Sleep needs vary slightly, but the vast majority of people, experts agree, need just about eight hours of sleep each night to fully recover from 16 hours of being awake.”
Egad!
NewMexiKen’s flight out of Dulles Airport was delayed an hour this evening, in part because there was no United ground crew available to load our luggage. (We made up half the delay on the flight to Albuquerque.)
Still, given this and the long series of cutbacks at airlines, how much longer will it be before we are expected to load our own bags?
Princessas
NewMexiKen attended the birthday party yesterday for Kiley, official oldest granddaughter of NewMexiKen. She turned four.
Until the next birthday among the grandchildren — coming up this Friday! — the Six Sweeties are 5, 4, 3, 2, 1 and six months.
Eighteen children 6-and-younger attended the party, vastly outnumbering the adults. Still, they were remarkably well behaved kids. I can’t remember a single serious altercation, and only after the cake and ice cream did the decibels reach threatening levels. (Keeping track of 18 kids in a three-story townhouse is a lot like herding cats.)
The Disney princess franchise (can you name the eight?) certainly saw a nice up-tick in sales.
Snow White, Cinderella, Aurora (Sleeping Beauty), Ariel (Little Mermaid), Jasmine (Aladdin), Belle (Beauty and the Beast), Mulan, and Pocahantas.
Where Have All the Miss Beadles Gone?
Again, from Dubner at Freakonomics Blog:
I have long heard the argument that one reason for the decline in teacher quality in U.S. schools (if in fact there has been such a decline) was the feminist movement. The argument goes like this: until the mid-1960’s or so, teaching was one of the few career paths wide open to women; as feminism opened up opportunities for women in other fields, many bright women followed those opportunities; the remaining pool of female teachers since then is therefore of lesser quality.
Like I said, I had long heard that argument, but couldn’t find any research on the subject. But thanks to Richard Morin’s always-excellent “Unconventional Wisdom” WashPost column (2nd item), here’s a new paper by Marigee Bacolod at Cal-Irvine, making that very argument.
Bacolod’s solution? Raise teacher salaries, of course.
Realtors, What Are They Good For?
Absolutely nothing, say it again. At the Freakonomics Blog, Stephen Dubner quotes from a paper by an attorney for the federal government, Mark S. Nadel:
While real estate brokers have long set their fee as a straight percentage of a home’s sale price, this formula is an anomaly and a primary reason why such fees may be inflated by more than $30 billion annually. Although competitive pressures ordinarily produce a fee structure reflecting costs, real estate broker commissions are strangely unrelated to either the quantity or quality of the service rendered or even to the value provided. Rather, this fee has been based solely on the price of the home. (It is as if tax preparers set their fee as a flat percentage of a client’s gross income, irrespective of how difficult the return was to prepare or how much their efforts saved the taxpayer). Oddly, not only is there no evidence that it is any more costly to sell higher-priced homes than median-priced properties, but it is possible that the opposite may be true! Furthermore, the straight percentage fee formula creates little incentive for real estate agents to provide home buyers or sellers with additional value.
Just Time for a Few Best Lines Today
Brad DeLong isn’t too impressed with the report on September new jobs in The Washington Post. He concludes:
One possible explanation is that both Henderson nor Baker are sufficiently lazy and stupid that they have managed to proceed through life writing about economics and politics while remaining completely ignorant of the difference between increases in nominal wages and real wages, and they have done so in a newsroom in which getting the story right is simply not a priority.
Other alternative explanations are more discreditable.
NewMexiKen wonders if it is possible that much of the news media was always this bad, and we just didn’t have the resources to know. Or has the news media just gone downhill that fast — especially The Washington Post?
On the other hand, TPM Muckraker finds some journalists to admire, those at the San Diego Union-Tribune. It seems former Rep. Duke Cunningham has written the paper a self-serving, you’re the cause of all my travail letter from prison. (Follow link to read some of the letter.)
I imagine the letter was difficult for the reporters to read — blinded, as they were, by the light glancing off the Pulitzer prizes they won by helping land Duke in jail.
Meanwhile Digby has this revelation:
I know this will come as a great shock to everyone, but it appears that Hastert may have lied about what he knew and when he knew it.
Oldie But a Goodie
65-year-old Bob Dylan and 61-year-old Bob Seger have nothing on 80-year-old Tony Bennett with their recent best-selling albums. Bennett’s new album, Duets debuted this week at number three.
It’s just Bennett’s third top ten album of his career, the first was early in 1957. His first number one single was “Because of You” in 1951.
71-year-old Jerry Lee Lewis’ new album debuted at spot 26.
A Work of Art
That’s University of New Mexico Public Speaking professor Bruce Potts.
Read more about Professor Potts from the Daily Lobo.
Click image to enlarge and learn more from City Rag.
Like pigs in mud, the pundit corps rediscovers the Joy of Sex
Daily Howler is a must read today for an insightful look at the current situation and modern American political theater.
Really.
Now, here comes the part which is apparently too complex for large numbers of us liberals to grasp. When we ourselves insist on repeating these themes, we continue to spread the unhelpful idea that Al Gore is a big fucking joke. This helps degrade Gore’s public image—and it helps degrade the public image of Major Dem Leaders as a whole. Beyond that, it helps explain why Gore, not being completely crazy, almost surely won’t run for the White House again. After all, if this is the way his supporters portray him, how could he expect to be portrayed by the RNC and the mainstream press corps? The sheer absurdity of this matter simply boggles the mind.
A couple of other things:
The Democrats may be better this time at getting out the votes, but the Republicans will still be better at counting them.
And, for the record, Monica Lewinsky was 22 when she met Clinton.
Ten Reasons I Don’t Heart The Balloon Fiesta
‘Burque Babble reposts from last year his “Ten Reasons I Don’t Heart The Balloon Fiesta.”
It’s good stuff, especially if you know Albuquerque and the Fiesta — and have a sense of humor about them. A favorite excerpt:
#7: Those 9:30 P.M. teasers for the local 10:00 TV news that attempt to tie everything back to Albuquerque and those stinkin’ balloons….
THIS IS TOM JOLES, Tonight at 10, FIRST ON FOUR, Six U.S. Soldiers Are Killed In Iraq, find out local reaction tonight from Balloon Fiesta Park … Plus, weatherman Larry Rice inexplicably stands out LIVE at a darkened Balloon Fiesta Park to tell us how Typhoon Brittany off the coast of Japan might impact winds at tomorrow morning’s launch.
Cooties
There are few downsides to visiting one’s grandchildren (as NewMexiKen is currently visiting five of his six grandchildren). One very distinct negative though, has to do with cooties. At home, not working (and not being a member of congress), I rarely hang out with children and their associated germs. Here I do little else but hang out with them.
So, as is the case more often than not, after a few days here I have a rotten cold settling very nicely, thank you, into my throat and chest. I feel so yucky this morning I wish I had a job again just so I had some place to call in sick.
Now, of course, none of The Sweeties is to blame. Kids have runny noses and germs just like they have Star Wars characters and princess gear. Grandpa just needs to figure out how to schedule these trips so that I can maintain some sort of immunities.
Fox Pants on Fire
According to reports, three times today Fox News identified ex-representative Mark Foley as D-FL. HE WAS A REPUBLICAN.
Photo from The Brad Blog.